· An Essay on Man was written by Alexander Pope in and was published anonymously. The poem presents Pope’s most “extensive disquisition on philosophical, cosmic, and social themes” and sparked one of the greatest debates on “beneficence of Nature, and the role of individual society” The work that more than any other popularized the optimistic philosophy, not only in England but throughout Europe, was Alexander Pope's Essay on Man (), a rationalistic effort to justify the ways of God to man philosophically · Analysis of Alexander Pope’s An Essay on Man By Nasrullah Mambrol on July 8, • (0) By the time Alexander Pope chose to publish his An Essay on Man (), he had received thorough and undeserved criticism from the poetasters, or “dunces,” whose activities he so often correctly lambasted, most notably in The Dunciad ().Estimated Reading Time: 7 mins
An Essay on Man | British Literature Wiki
Under Queen Anne he was an original poet, but made little money by his verses; under George I, alexander pope essay on man. he also edited Shakespeare, but with little profit to himself; for Shakespeare was but a Philistine in the eyes of the French-classical critics.
Wrongs in high places, and the private infamy of many who enforced the doctrines of the Church, had produced in earnest men a vigorous antagonism. Tyranny and unreason of low-minded advocates had brought religion itself into question; and profligacy of courtiers, each worshipping the golden calf seen in his mirror, had spread another form of scepticism. The intellectual scepticism, based upon an honest search for truth, could end only in making truth the surer by its questionings.
The other form of scepticism, which might be traced in England from the low-minded frivolities of the court of Charles the Second, was widely spread among the weak, whose minds flinched from all earnest thought. They swelled the number of the army of bold questioners upon the ways of God to Man, but they were an idle rout of camp-followers, not combatants; they simply ate, and drank, and died. Doubt was born of the corruption of society; Nature and Man were said to be against faith in the rule of a God, wise, just, alexander pope essay on man, and merciful.
Bayle, he said, is now in Heaven, and from his place by the throne of God, he sees the harmony of the great Universe, and doubts no more, alexander pope essay on man. We see only a little part in which are many details that have purposes beyond our ken. When any book has a wide influence upon opinion, its general ideas pass into the minds of many people who have never read it.
Many now talk about evolution and natural selection, who have never read a line of Darwin. In the reign of George the Second, questionings did spread that went to the roots of all religious faith, and many earnest minds were busying themselves with problems of the state of Man, and of the evidence of God in the life of man, and in the course of Nature.
Out of this came, nearly at the same time, two works wholly different in method and in tone—so different, that at first sight it may seem absurd to speak of them together. Milton sought to set forth the story of the Fall in such way as to show that God was love. Pope dealt with the question of God in Nature, and the world of Man.
de Crousaz, Professor of Philosophy and Mathematics in the University of Lausanne, and defended by Warburton, then chaplain to the Prince of Wales, in six letters published inand a seventh infor which Pope who died in was deeply grateful. His offence in the eyes of de Crousaz was that he had left out of account all doctrines of orthodox theology. But if he had been orthodox of the orthodox, his argument obviously could have been directed only to the form of doubt it sought to overcome. The first design of the Essay on Man arranged it into four books, each consisting of a distinct group of Epistles.
The First Book, in four Epistles, was to treat of man in the abstract, and of his relation to alexander pope essay on man Universe. That is the whole work as we have it now. The Second Book was to treat of Man Intellectual; the Third Book, of Man Social, including ties to Church and State; the Fourth Book, of Man Moral, was to illustrate abstract truth by sketches of character.
This part of the design is represented by the Moral Essays, of which four were written, to which was added, as a fifth, the Epistle to Addison which had been written much earlier, inand first published in The four Moral essays are two pairs. One pair is upon the Characters of Men and on the Characters of Women, which would have formed the opening of the subject of the Fourth Book of the Essay: the other pair shows character expressed through a right or a wrong use of Riches: in fact, Money and Morals.
The four Epistles were published separately. Thus the two works were, in fact, produced together, parts of one design. That part of the epistle to Arbuthnot forming the Prologue, which gives a character of Addison, as Atticus, had been sketched more than twelve years before, and earlier sketches of some smaller critics were introduced; but the beginning and the end, the parts in which Pope spoke of himself and of alexander pope essay on man father and mother, and his friend Dr.
Arbuthnot, were written in and The reader of Pope, as of every author, is advised to begin by letting him say what he has to say, in his own manner to an open mind that seeks only to receive the impressions which the writer wishes to convey. First let the mind and spirit of the writer come into free, full contact with the mind and spirit of the reader, alexander pope essay on man, whose attitude at the first reading should be simply receptive.
Read, reader, for yourself, without once pausing to remember what you have been told to think. The science of Human Nature is, like all other sciences, reduced to a few clear points: there are not many certain truths in this world.
It is therefore in the anatomy of the Mind as in that of the Body; more good will accrue to mankind by attending to the large, open, and perceptible parts, than by studying too much such finer nerves and vessels, the conformations and uses of which will for ever escape our observation.
The disputes are all upon these last, and, I will venture to say, they have less sharpened the wits than the hearts of men against each other, and have diminished the practice more than advanced the theory of Morality. If I could flatter myself that this Essay has any merit, it is in steering betwixt the extremes of doctrines seemingly opposite, in passing over terms utterly unintelligible, and in forming a temperate yet not inconsistent, alexander pope essay on man, and a short yet not imperfect system of Ethics.
This I might have done in prose, but I chose verse, and even rhyme, for two reasons. The one will appear obvious; that principles, maxims, or precepts so written, both strike the reader more strongly at first, and are more easily retained by him afterwards: the other may seem odd, but is true, I found I could express them more shortly this way than in prose itself; and nothing is more certain, than that much of the force as well as grace of arguments or instructions depends on their conciseness.
I was unable to treat this part of my subject more in detail, without becoming dry and tedious; or more poetically, without sacrificing perspicuity to ornament, without wandering from the precision, or breaking the chain of reasoning: if any man can unite all these without diminution of any of them I freely confess he will compass a thing above my capacity.
What is now published is only to be considered as a general Map of Man, marking out alexander pope essay on man more than the greater parts, their extent, their limits, and their connection, and leaving the particular to be more fully delineated in the charts which are to follow.
Consequently, these Alexander pope essay on man in their progress if I have health and leisure to make any progress will be less dry, alexander pope essay on man, and more susceptible of poetical ornament.
I am here only opening the fountains, and clearing the passage. To deduce the rivers, to follow them in their course, and to observe their effects, may be a task more agreeable. Of Man in the abstract. That we can judge only with regard to our own system, alexander pope essay on man, being ignorant of alexander pope essay on man relations of systems and things, v. That Man is not to be deemed imperfect, but a being suited to his place and rank in the Creation, agreeable to the general Order of Things, and conformable to Ends and Relations to him unknown, v.
That it is partly upon his ignorance of future events, and partly upon the hope of future state, that all his happiness in the present depends, v. The impiety of putting himself in the place of God, and judging of the fitness or unfitness, perfection or imperfection, justice or injustice of His dispensations, v. The absurdity of conceiting himself the final cause of the Creation, or expecting that perfection in the moral world, which is not in the natural, v.
The unreasonableness of his complaints against Providence, while on the one hand he demands the Perfections of the Angels, and on the other the bodily qualifications of the Brutes; though to possess any of the sensitive faculties in a higher degree would render him miserable, v. That throughout the whole visible world, an universal order and gradation in the sensual and mental faculties is observed, which cause is a subordination of creature to creature, and of all creatures to Man.
The gradations of sense, instinct, thought, reflection, reason; that Reason alone countervails all the other faculties, alexander pope essay on man, v. How much further this order and subordination of living creatures may extend, above and below us; were any part of which broken, not that part only, but the whole connected creation, must be destroyed, v.
The extravagance, madness, and pride of such a desire, v. The consequence of all, the absolute submission due to Providence, both as to our present and future state, v. Awake, my St. leave all meaner things To low ambition, and the pride of kings. but not without a plan; A wild, where weeds and flowers promiscuous shoot; Or garden tempting with forbidden fruit.
Say first, of God above, or man below What alexander pope essay on man we reason, but from what we know? Of man, what see we but his station here, From which to reason, or to which refer? He, who through vast immensity can pierce, See worlds on worlds compose one universe, Observe how system into system runs, What other planets circle other suns, What varied being peoples every star, May tell why Heaven has made us as we are.
But of this frame, the bearings, and the ties, The strong connections, nice dependencies, Gradations just, has thy pervading soul Looked through? or can a part contain the whole? Is the great chain, that draws all to agree, And drawn supports, upheld by God, or thee? Presumptuous man! the reason wouldst thou find, alexander pope essay on man, Why formed so weak, so little, and so blind?
First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess, alexander pope essay on man, Why formed no weaker, blinder, and no less; Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks are made Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade? Respecting man, whatever wrong we call, May, must be right, as relative to all.
If to be perfect in a certain sphere, What matter, soon or late, or here or there? The blest to-day is as completely so, As who began a thousand years ago. Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate, All but the page prescribed, their present state: From brutes what men, from men what spirits know: Or who could suffer being here below? The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food, And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood. Oh, blindness to the future! kindly given, That each may fill the circle, marked by Heaven: Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall, Atoms or systems alexander pope essay on man ruin hurled, And now a bubble burst, and now a world.
Hope humbly, then; with trembling pinions soar; Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore. What future bliss, He gives not thee to know, But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always to be blest: The soul, uneasy and confined from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come. Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutored mind Sees God in clouds, alexander pope essay on man, or hears Him in the wind; His soul, proud science never taught to stray Far as the solar walk, or milky way; Yet simple Nature to his hope has given, Behind the cloud-topped hill, an humbler heaven; Some safer world in depth of woods embraced, Some happier island in the watery waste, Where slaves once more their native land behold, No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
Go, alexander pope essay on man, wiser thou! In pride, in reasoning pride, our error lies; All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies. Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes, Men would be angels, alexander pope essay on man, angels would be gods. Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell, Aspiring to be angels, men rebel: And who but wishes to alexander pope essay on man the laws Of order, sins against the Eternal Cause.
Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine, Earth for whose use? If the great end be human happiness, Then Nature deviates; and can man do less? From pride, from pride, our very reasoning springs; Account for moral, as for natural things: Why charge we heaven in those, in these acquit? In both, to reason right is to submit. Better for us, perhaps, it might appear, Were there all harmony, all virtue here; That never air or ocean felt the wind; That never passion discomposed the mind. But all subsists by elemental strife; And passions are the elements of life.
The general order, since the whole began, Is kept in nature, and is alexander pope essay on man in man. What would this man? Now upward will alexander pope essay on man soar, And little less than angel, would be more; Now looking downwards, alexander pope essay on man, just as grieved appears To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears Made for his use all creatures if he call, Say what their use, had he the powers of all?
Nature to these, without profusion, kind, The proper organs, proper powers assigned; Each seeming want compensated of course, Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force; All in exact proportion to the state; Nothing to add, and nothing to abate. Each beast, each insect, happy in its own: Is Heaven unkind to man, and man alone? Shall he alone, whom rational we call, Be pleased with nothing, alexander pope essay on man, if not blessed with all?
The bliss of man could pride that blessing find Is not to act or think beyond mankind; No powers of body or of soul to share, But what his nature and his state can bear. Why has not man a microscopic eye?
“An Essay on Man” (Part 1)
, time: 11:36Alexander Pope's Essay on Man
· An Essay on Man was written by Alexander Pope in and was published anonymously. The poem presents Pope’s most “extensive disquisition on philosophical, cosmic, and social themes” and sparked one of the greatest debates on “beneficence of Nature, and the role of individual society” The work that more than any other popularized the optimistic philosophy, not only in England but throughout Europe, was Alexander Pope's Essay on Man (), a rationalistic effort to justify the ways of God to man philosophically · Analysis of Alexander Pope’s An Essay on Man By Nasrullah Mambrol on July 8, • (0) By the time Alexander Pope chose to publish his An Essay on Man (), he had received thorough and undeserved criticism from the poetasters, or “dunces,” whose activities he so often correctly lambasted, most notably in The Dunciad ().Estimated Reading Time: 7 mins
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